Current mass-market communications technology is very insecure. User adoption rates for encryption of emails, instant messages, and phone calls are for all intents nil. Even the use of ad-free, cookie-free, untraceable internet browsing is on the order of 5%, despite its extreme ease. Legal protection for the privacy of such communications is scarcely any better. For example, the NSA entrapped, wiretapped, and blackmailed a high-ranking Democratic congresswoman for the purpose of installing her on the House Intelligence committee where she could expand their surveillance powers. Authority for roaming, warrantless wiretaps has been claimed by presidents from both political parties. The dominant usage of technology in America has done much to destroy the expectations of privacy and secrecy that people enjoyed just a few decades ago. Might it be possible to convince people to take matters into their own hands?

I initially proposed the PATRIOT phone. It will look like this. It will feature RSA cryptography that is all but impossible to break, with no back doors or key escrow. With the right marketing strategy, a satisfactory product, and reasonable price points, it shouldn't be difficult to put such devices in the hands of several thousands of users. At that point, the device becomes an impediment to large scale surveillance. If even 1% of network traffic were encrypted, it would be impossible to capture that volume of traffic for cryptanalysis -- there simply aren't enough supercomputers.

Such consumer technology does not exist. There are a variety of phones that employ RSA or similarly strong encryption, but they are not interoperable and cost $1500 or more. This is puzzling. Crytographic algorithms, qua algorithms, are not patentable subject matter and cannot be monopolized. To whatever extent such monopolization was possible (i.e. by patenting cryptographic math done "on a computer" or "a microchip that performs cryptographic math"), those patents should have long since been expired. See 1, 2. This academic paper suggests a means for implementing RSA into programmable logic chips that cost less than $10, and provides sufficient computing power to encrypt voice data in real time. In fact, that paper is five years old: the technology should be trivial at this point.

As a regulatory matter, the approval of such a device ought to be straightforward. The FCC's Rule Part 15 requires that devices not cause "harmful interference" that would jam other authorized signals (radio, television, etc). There does not appear to be any sort of clause that allows the FCC to disapprove devices that it simply does not like.

The US cellular handset market is highly concentrated. The top three companies account for two thirds of the market, and the top six account for almost 90%. Part of the problem seems to be that US consumers buy handsets bundled with phone service, whereas in most countries the two products are separate. Nokia, for example, has 40% of the global handset market but only about 8% of the US market, purportedly because they refuse to 'play ball' with the large telecommunications companies. The market for wireless communication is similarly concentrated -- 4 companies control 81.2% of the market. The fact that these industries are highly concentrated may indicate that there are barriers to entry (for example, large fixed capital costs). Thus, a would-be wireless player would either have to build its own network or play nicely with a party that has already done so. In other countries, an innovator might be able to rely upon the essential facilities doctrine of antitrust law, or open network access provisions, but not here.

Recent telecommunication innovators like Skype avoid the cellular network altogether. Skype users may make encrypted calls (only to other Skype users) using 256 bit AES encryption, which, while not impenetrable, would certainly thwart all but highly motivated eavesdroppers and would prevent wholesale data mining. However, Skype itself is not open source, and it is widely believed that some set of motivated parties (governments, at a minimum) are given "backdoor" snoop access. A number of open source VoIP suites exist, but none of them seem to feature PC-to-landline/cellular calls (unless I misunderstand the websites).

It does not seem that the incumbent telecommunications carriers are willing to allow access to their network for free, unlike the rest of the internet. To the extent that they allow Skype and Google Voice to exist, it is probably because they view them as interesting experiments in marketing and distribution, much in the manner that they experiment with giving customers "night and weekend" minutes or a "circle of five" or other such nonsensical demand metering masquerading as bandwith pricing. I would be surprised if Ebay viewed Skype as long-term strategic fit--perhaps one of the four companies that control 82% of the phone network might be interested in buying it in the future. The only real solution seems to be to abandon the closed networks of the telecommunications monopolists all together. This would require adoption of an addressing system more like instant messenger than a phone directory, but if the reward were free or near-free phone calls, people might be convinced. Cell phones would fuse with tablet PCs, and access the internet over municipal wifi.

The use of open networks to transmit voice data would make encryption nearly mandatory, since otherwise anyone situated between two callers could simply sniff packets and eavesdrop entire conversations. Due to open network architecture, there are a lot of people so situated, whereas on closed phone company networks, the only person between you and the person you are calling is Ma Bell. People are not generally convinced of the need conceal their conversations from her, which is just as well, because as long as you're on her network, the only way to do so is to buy $1500 phones, and to insist that your banks, doctors, and phone sex operators all use them.

--Okay, this is relatively done.